‘Minotaur’ by Jim Shepard

Minotaur by Jim Shepard, 2009

The magic trick:

A story that takes the secrecy of relationships and makes it literal

This is an interesting story. It looks at marriage and relationships, highlighting the notion that no one can really, truly know us. Even in what appears to be a happy marriage, there are always secrets.

But if that sounds like a not particularly surprising realization, what this story does is explore that idea by telling the story of a man whose job requires that he keeps secrets. He’s working on classified projects, so he is fully conditioned and fully expected to withhold tremendous amounts about himself from his loved ones.

So it makes for a very interesting, literal exploration of relationship problems.

And that’s quite a trick on Shepard’s part.

The selection:

It’s all infowar now. Delivering or screwing up content. We can convince a surface-to-air missile that it’s a Maytag dryer. Tell an over-the-horizon radar array that it’s through for the day, or that it wants to play music. And we’ve got lookdown capabilities that can tell you from space whether your aunt’s having a Diet Coke or a regular.

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